Daystrom Institute

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x05 Empathalogical Fallacies.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

The title is a play on the term “pathological fallacy”, where traits seen in one person or group are extrapolated to be part of the entire population that person belongs to.

Captain Sokel of the VCS (“Vulcan Command Ship”?) Sh’val was last seen in LD: “wej Duj” as T’Lyn’s commanding officer, who recommended that she be reassigned to Starfleet.

Angel I is the titular planet in TNG: “Angel One”, which is ruled by women. It was visited by the Enterprise-D in 2364. Risa, of course, is a resort planet that has featured or been mentioned in almost every post-TNG series.

Katrot says she loves the Starfleet carpeting. In PIC: “Võx”, Picard says he misses the Enterprise-D’s carpeting. The other Betazoid diplomats are Cathiw (who makes a pass at Ransom and Freeman) and Dolorex.

“Anything glowing and green” might refer to Aldebaran Whiskey, which matches the description (TNG: “Relics”).

Romulan ale was illegal in Kirk’s time (ST II, ST VI), became legal during the Dominion War when the Romulans allied with the Federation (DS9: “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges”), but then apparently became illegal again after (Nemesis). Then again, Romulan Ale was part of a consignment of Alpha Quadrant gifts to be handed to the Karemma (LD: “Hear All, Trust Nothing”), and in PIC: “Disengage” it’s implied to be contraband, so who knows?

The names Boimler are trying to memorize include Jet Manhaver (LD: “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”), the second coolest person on the Cerritos, Hans Federov (named in LD: “Room for Growth” and “The Stars at Night”) a.k.a. Towel Guy and the ship gossip, Honus (LD: “Mugato, Gumato”) the bartender, Kayshon (LD: “Kayshon, His Eyes Open”) the Tamarian security chief, Taylor (named in LD: “In the Cradle of Vexilon”) the Kzinti ensign, Merp (named in LD: “I, Excretus”), Big Merp (“In the Cradle of Vexilon”) and Sleepy Merp.

Tsunkatse is a mixed martial art arena fight (VOY: “Tsunkatse”). Boims thinks he’s being initiated into a fight club - well, there’s slamming of a sort anyway.

Worf, son of Mogh, grew up on the farm colony of Gault (TNG: “Heart of Glory”), raised by his human adoptive parents, the Rozhenkos. The security officer reciting the poem is named Haubold.

Lwaxana Troi, while suffering from Zanthi Fever, empathically broadcast her feelings of affection for Odo, making a number of the crew act amorously (DS9: “Fascination”). Betazoids are telepathic among themselves, but can teach others to hear their thoughts, too, as Troi apparently did to Riker (TNG: “Encounter at Farpoint”), although this was kind of dropped after the pilot.

Alterian flaking may come from the same planet as the Alterian chowder that Sisko attempted to order in Quark’s (DS9: “Armageddon Game”).

The jigsaw puzzle (Starfleet Security Series, 1000 pieces) has a picture of the NX-01 Enterprise and Malcolm Reed on its cover.

The map of the Romulan Neutral Zone, like most maps in the post-DIS era, is based heavily on Geoffrey Mandel’s Star Charts. The Cerritos is in the vicinity of the planet Syrma, or Iota Virginis (in a starchart in PIC: “Disengage”). The planets marked on the map are Romulus and Romii (TOS: “Balance of Terror”) and Cheron.

It’s unclear whether this is the same Cheron as that in TOS: “Let There Be Your Last Battlefield”, and beta canon sources are contradictory on this point. Cheron is stated to be the site of a humiliating defeat for the Romulans (TNG: “The Defector”) and in ENT: “In a Mirror Darkly”, the USS Defiant database identifies the Battle of Cheron as the one that ended the Earth-Romulan War.

Sarek suffered from Bendii Syndrome, which caused him to lose control of his emotions and also affect people around him (TNG: “Sarek”) and he eventually died from it (TNG: “Unification”).

T’Lyn is 62 years old. In comparison, T’Pol was 63 when she joined the NX-01 in 2151.

The (apparently Bajoran) Tarot cards show the Emissary, Derna (the fourth moon of Bajor, DS9: “Image in the Sand”), the Borhya (a Bajoran word for ghost, TNG: “The Next Phase”), Invasion, the Celestial Temple and the Ten of Orbs (Nine orbs were said to have appeared over the centuries in DS9: “Emissary”, with a tenth orb recovered in DS9: “Shadows and Symbols”).

Shax says the Invasion card is more of a rebirth, rather like the traditional Earth tarot card Death, which is associated with transformation and also rebirth. Then again Boimler says all the cards are about rebirth.

Tendi’s admittedly heightened desire to make T’Lyn be her friend harkens back to LD: “Moist Vessel”, where she admits that it kills her if someone doesn’t like her. As Tendi hugs T’Lyn, we see Big Merp at the back using the Game headset (from TNG: “The Game”).

When Mariner says that Sarek was “Vulcan as a motherfucker”, both her hands are in the Vulcan salute. She showed a similar two-handed salute to Freeman, described as a “sarcastic Vulcan salute” in “Moist Vessel”. Interestingly enough, the Vulcan salute was invented by Leonard Nimoy based on the Jewish Priestly Blessing, which also uses both hands.

It’s always struck me as strange that while technically nobody on either side is supposed to enter the Neutral Zone, the Romulans routinely seem to lurk inside the Zone just outside of the Federation border of it. While startrek.com claims the Zone is only one light-year wide, that’s still a lot of room compared to what is usually depicted.

There were endless moments in season 3 that would have been solved by reaching out to the progressive Borg collective from the season 2 finale. Not to mention that a few character arcs and character development moments that just seem suspiciously absent in season 3. So, is the entirety of season 2 not cannon or am I missing something?

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x04 Something Borrowed, Something Green.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

This ScienceOf.org interview with Professor of Genetics/Evolution (& Star Trek biological science advisor) Mohammed Noor on the biology, especially the r-selection reproduction, of the Gorn in SNW is marvellous.

Just the kind of uncomfortable but great biological thinking I was hoping we’d get into here at Daystrom Institute.

e.g. Can we think of the Gorn in viral terms?

Treating Gorn like this, each infected person could infect four more people, so the R0 for Gorn would be 4. Not wildly big, but large enough to do the job. Of course, the hatchlings would also be going after one another, so the analogy’s not perfect.

But if you want to think of the Gorn as intelligent, viral space dinosaurs, that does get the idea across.

The title is a play on the wedding rhyme/tradition, dating back to 19th Century England, of the bride wearing “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue (and a sixpence in her shoe),” for good luck. The green, of course, refers to the pigmentation of Orions.

The ship seems to be a new class of Orion Interceptor with some extra added bits, the original design of which dates back to the 22nd Century (ENT: “Borderland”). The female Orion plays with a TOS style phaser pistol and then tosses it in the trash. They talk about body modification, specifically “bolts in the head”, which we saw on the Orion privateer Harrad-Sar (ENT: “Bound”).

Mariner calls Tendi “D”, which is a reminder that her full name is D’vana Tendi. Tendi refers to Orion “belly dancer outfits” (TOS: “The Cage”, “Whom Gods Destroy”, ENT: “Bound”). Mariner says she has put her foot in her mouth about Orion culture enough times (LD: “Crisis Point”, and Boimler did the same in SNW: “Those Old Scientists”, when both assumed all Orions were pirates).

This is the first time we’ve heard of Andorian linen, but Andorian silk was also prized as a fabric (DS9: “Q-Less”). On the shelves we see Boimler’s plate of the Cerritos, his figures of Mirror Archer, Spock in his monster maroons and Data holding a phaser rifle (LD: “I Have No Bones and I Must Flee”) and his “Boimler Effect” plaque (LD: “Temporal Edict”). On Rutherford’s side we see his DS9 model (and box) from LD: “Hear All, Trust Nothing” and a replica of Wesley Crusher’s tractor beam emitter model from TNG: “The Naked Now” (also seen in “I Have No Bones…”)

Grandmama Boimler said, “A cool duvet keeps the raisin rats away.” The Boimler family owns a raisin vineyard on Earth (LD: “Grounded”). “Lil Boney” the bonsai belongs to Boimler, who acquired it reluctantly in LD: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”.

As the Yosemite II shuttle approaches Orion, we see a space station in orbit and also an Orion barge, resembling that piloted by Harrad-Sar in “Bound”. In Star Trek Online the 25th Century version is known as a Blackguard-class Flight Deck Assault Cruiser. We see an Orion riding a purple rhino with two horns and two tusks.

Mariner references Chief Engineer Billups’ background as a prince of Hysperia when she remarks that Tendi also grew up in a castle (LD: “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie”).

One of Tendi’s titles is “Mistress of the Winter Constellations” (“We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”). We learn that Tendi’s parents are the Warrior Queen Shona and B’Rt. Harrad-Sar alleged in “Bound” that while most of the galaxy harbors the misconception that Orion women are slaves, it is actually the females who dominate the males via their pheromones.

Symbolic bridal kidnappings (as opposed to actual ones, which are considered sex crimes) are still part of some cultures on Earth. In the case of Orions, the kidnapping is done by a rival family between the save the date and the issuing of the invitations. Tendi is Prime Daughter.

The real Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) appeared in TNG: “Time’s Arrow”.

Comparing the lettering with the name of the bar (“Slit Throat”), the Orion alphabet is a straight one-for-one substitution with English (like Gorn script in SNW).

New Seattle is located on Penthara IV (TNG: “A Matter of Time”).

T’Lyn observes the Orion males in the “scentuary” are under the influence of chemicals, possibly pheromones. Mariner claims that Starfleet made that up to explain why a starship captain could be taken down by “show girls”, referring to the events of “Bound”, but is proven wrong. Tendi clarifies that only some Orions control others through pheromones, but not her. Ingreeta later claims Tendi doesn’t have the pheromones (but didn’t need it).

Coqqor is a Chalnoth (TNG: “Allegiance”) and claims to be from South Chalnoth, although the name of the planet is Chalna. Coqqor could be referring to a region or a city on Chalna.

The ship that Tendi says was one her and D’Erika’s favorites appears to be of the same class as the SS Raven owned by Seven of Nine’s family (VOY: “The Raven”). Tendi was raised as a Syndicate assassin, a “prime”, to be the Tip of the Moonlit Blade.

If we’re keeping score, I think Mariner gets stabbed four times in the shoulder (at the Slit Throat, the scentuary, by D’Erika and at the daughter-daddy dagger dance).

While Mozart has never appeared on Star Trek, many of his works have been heard over the course of the series in episodes.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x03 In the Cradle of Vexilon.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

How exactly do the Klingons justify using cloaking ships, a strategy which necessarily involves sneaking up on an enemy and catching them unaware? Wouldn't sneak attacks conflict with their notion of honour?

The Stardate is 58795.1.

A megastructure is a large artificial object, in science fiction terms a massive construct in space, like a Dyson Sphere or a Ringworld, encircling a star. Corazonia, a Federation world, is of the latter variety, also known as a Dyson Ring. In DIS: “Rosetta”, Species 10-C had created a set of Dyson Rings around an extragalactic star. The word corazón means “heart” in Spanish.

Freeman’s concerns about Vexilon are well-founded. Star Trek doesn’t have a good track record with seemingly benevolent AIs that are designed to care for a population. Notable examples include TOS: “The Return of the Archons”, “The Apple”, “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”, “The Ultimate Computer”, DIS’s Control, and recently in LD we had AGIMUS and arguably Peanut Hamper.

The mountain that was flooded is named Inspiration Peak. The real world Inspiration Peak is a glacial feature in Minnesota.

One of Boimler’s away team is ENS Taylor, a Kzinti (TAS: “The Slaver Weapon”). Kzinti were originally created by Larry Niven for his Man-Kzin War stories, and were featured as antagonists in the TAS episode he penned. However, they were not used again (presumably because of copyright reasons) except in Task Force Games’ Starfleet Battles starship combat game until they were mentioned by Riker in PIC: “Nepenthe”. Kzinti crew have shown up in LD starting in LD: “Mugato, Gumato”.

The other two are a human Asian female, Meredith and a male member of the unnamed species LT Merp belongs to (LD: “Second Contact”, although this officer appeared in LD: “First First Contact”, and Boims in this episode calls him “Big Merp”).

While this is the first time we’ve seen the anomaly storage room, our heroes were assigned Anomaly Consolidation Duty in Season 2’s LD: “The Spy Humongous”, which went about as well as you’d expect.

What I can identify in the room is a lirpa (TOS: “Amok Time”), the Nomad probe (TOS: “The Changeling”), a Wadi chula board (DS9: “Move Along Home”), a Klingon bat’leth with a box that contains a ferret, and a Betazoid gift box (TNG: “Haven”). Rutherford points to a hat that apparently turned Billups into a church tower, and Tendi warns him away from a spider that would make his head fall off and skitter away (a reference to a scene from the John Carpenter movie The Thing where that exact thing happens?). There’s a device that looks like a Kataan probe (TNG: “The Inner Light”) but it had two prongs on each side instead of the usual one, so that threw me off.

Mariner misquotes the chula chant as “allamalay, lemon meringue”. The actual annoying phrasing is “Allamaraine, count to four. Allamaraine, then three more. Allamaraine, if you can see. Allamaraine, you'll come with me.”

On a shelf behind her is the Romulan Cloaking Device from TOS: “The Enterprise Incident”, which is Nomad’s head stuck on one of the Arretan energy globes from TOS: “Return to Tomorrow”.

Isolinear optical chips are the successor to the solid data cartridges seen in TOS and the transparent carts seen in SNW. The primary software and data storage medium of Starfleet in the 24th Century, they were first seen in TNG: “The Naked Now”. The lieutenant giving orders to Tendi, Mariner and Rutherford is named Dirk.

The breathers are similar in design to that initially used by the landing party in TOS: “The Squire of Gothos” being a mask connected to a box-like air supply. The handheld scanners look like T88 diagnostic tools, a bunch of which were stolen by Rutherford and Tendi from the USS Vancouver (LD: “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”). The ferret in the anomaly room is apparently Billups’ pet Lancelot.

Vexilon’s original designers evolved into fifth-dimensional energy beings 6 million and 7 years ago. In our universe we are considered to have four dimensions: three observable spatial ones - length, width, height - and one temporal one, time, although we can only move freely in the first three.

As a deeper cut, Superman’s enemy Mr Mxyzptlk is said to be from the 5th Dimension, and Rod Serling stated that the Twilight Zone was a fifth dimension - the dimension of imagination.

We last saw ascension in LD: “Moist Vessel”, but there are a number of species in Star Trek that make the transition from corporeal to incorporeal, like the Thasians (TOS: “Charlie X”), Organians (TOS: “Errand of Mercy”), the Q (TNG: “Hide and Q”), the Zalkonians (TNG: “Transfigurations”), Kes (VOY: “The Gift”), Benjamin Sisko (DS9: “What You Leave Behind”). In “Moist Vessel”, it is said the Tamarians (TNG: “Darmok”) use florkas to aid ascension.

Billups makes an engineering joke about “unotronic” systems. In the 23rd Century, Richard Daystrom made the duotronic - as opposed to electronic - breakthrough that powered starship computers. Although his attempt at multitronics proved initially disastrous (TOS: “The Ultimate Computer”), multitronic systems eventually were used in technologies requiring the use and manipulation of memory or personality engrams in the 24th Century (DS9: “Extreme Measures”, VOY: “The Swarm”).

Freeman accidentally reboots Vexilon to factory settings, which basically sends him into a planetary re-genesis, similar to but less rapid than the effect created by the Genesis Device (ST II). Freeman wants Boims to reverse the retrofit so they can force a restart, before the anaerobic bacteria are released. Anaerobic bacteria (so called because they don’t require oxygen to survive) were the first known living organisms on Earth from which all life evolved. The urgency may be due to a concern that Vexilon might start removing oxygen from the atmosphere since that might harm the bacteria.

I wonder if T’Lyn’s use of the word “fascinating” is the same as Spock’s, who said he reserved its use for the unexpected. In other contexts, he claimed“interesting” would suffice (“The Squire of Gothos”).

The prank Mariner, Rutherford and Tendi rig up involves the chula game, a phaser, the Betazoid gift box and the Kataan probe. Dirk claims he got trapped in a chula game for a month as a kid, traumatizing him (this is a lie, as we find out later).

Tellarite slop jazz is the latest reference to Tellarite culture. In SNW: “Among the Lotus Eaters”, Ortegas jokes that Uhura stays up late translating Tellarite sonnets.

Dirk says Fats B’Zirtak overdosed on ketracel-white. “Fats” is a common jazz nickname, probably most famously applied to “Fats” Waller. Ketracel-white is the substance that Jem’Hadar are dependent on to survive (DS9: “The Abandoned”, et al.). There is a brand of hot sauce called “Ketracel White Hot” with a 17 million SHU rating (LD: “Grounded”).

Levels in chula are called shaps, as per “Move Along Home”. Rutherford exits the game the same way the DS9 crew did in the episode, by falling into a chasm.

It turns out the probe is a Kataan probe after all, or at least acts like one, since it downloads a whole life experience into the gift box. The gift box sobs, “I miss my wife.” In the simulated life in “The Inner Light”, Picard lived an entire life with a wife and son. The gift box’s line is also said by the Michael Sullivan hologram in LD: “Twovix”.

When Boimler dies, he sees the Black Mountain, which Shax described as a spiritual battleground the soul goes after death to battle three faceless apparitions of their father after which the surviving father makes them eat their own heart (LD: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”). Boims also sees the Cosmic Koala (“Moist Vessel”), which Steve Stevens also reported seeing sitting on the mountain when he was brain dead for ten minutes (LD: “Mining the Mind’s Mines”).

The Koala apparently says, “It’s not your time, Bradward Boimler,” in reverse. This scene is a riff on the extradimensional space called the Red Room from Twin Peaks, down to the design of the lamps and the pattern of the floors. The backwards dialogue references how the Red Room actors’ lines were spoken backwards then played forwards to produce an otherworldly intonation.

Ransom says “You never forget your first death.” As was said in “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”, bridge officers are always coming back from the dead. Technically, this is Boimler’s third death, the first two being in LD: “First First Contact” (where he first saw the Koala) and LD: “Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus”.

Time travel in Star Trek is a tricky business. As much as we try to make sense of it, and to be fair the way it works and the way historical changes affect the timeline is for the most part consistent, it still is “only for the most part”. For every instantaneous change to history shown in TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”, there’s a kind of delayed effect as exhibited in DS9: “Past Tense”. For every reset of the timeline in VOY: “Year of Hell”, there’s the lasting effects implied in SNW: “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”.

One conundrum is TAS: “Yesteryear”, probably the most memorable episode of TAS. The set up is that Kirk and Spock are returning from a trip to Orion’s past via the Guardian of Forever. When they emerge from the temporal donut, they are startled to discover that the McCoy and the party of welcoming scientists do not recognize Spock.

(As a side note, why don’t they remember Spock? As we saw in “The City on the Edge of Forever”, being in close proximity to the Guardian protects you from the changes in time - when McCoy goes through and changes history, the Enterprise vanishes from orbit but Kirk and the landing party still retain their existence and memories. One possibility is that McCoy took the scientists up to the Enterprise briefly while Kirk and Spock were in the past, whereupon they were subsumed into the changed timeline, but then we also know from “City” that the trip into the past and back takes only an instant, no matter how long you stay in the past. It’s a problem, and I’m not sure I’ve got a good solution for it. But see below.)

Returning to the Enterprise, Spock discovers that he has never been First Officer (replaced by an Andorian) and in fact died as a child on Vulcan during the kahs-wan ritual. But yet, Spock recalls that during the ritual he was saved by a distant cousin named Selek. Realizing that Selek was Spock himself, Kirk surmises that history was changed because Spock followed Kirk to Orion and so didn’t go back in time to Vulcan. Spock realizes that he must go back in time and save his past self.

But this raises a slight problem - what was the original timeline to start with? If Spock originally died, then how did he grow up to go back to save himself? Is this a bootstrap paradox at work? But then it’s not a perfect loop because the events of “Yesteryear” only occur because the loop breaks, creating a new timeline in the middle of it.

(Also, given the very nature of time travel, Kirk’s theory that history changed because Spock went back to Orion’s past and he couldn’t be in two places at once makes no sense because it’s time travel. Spock’s journey into the past doesn’t have to occur at a specific time for it to work.)

So what gives here? The only way this makes sense is if, in the original timeline, the change in history and the paradox were meant to happen.

In the original timeline, Young Spock nearly dies in the Vulcan desert, but is saved by Future Spock. But this leaves the question unanswered as to why Future Spock is there to begin with - the impetus for him to go back in the first place. The only reason Spock goes back is because he discovers that if he doesn’t, Young Spock dies. And the only way he discovers this is because of the existence of the paradox of the new timeline.

So it wasn’t because Spock went back to Orion that caused the paradox, as if it was a choice that started the dominoes falling. Spock had to go back to Orion so that he would find out that history had changed when he returned, which would then lead him to go back in time to change history “back”. The alteration in the timeline and the subsequent repair job was always part of the original history.

And perhaps that provides a solution to why McCoy and the scientists were affected by the timeline changes. Perhaps to impress upon Spock the necessity for him to go back in time, it had to be clear from the get-go that history had changed rather than for him to find out when he returned to the Enterprise.

And the entity that would be aware of this, and presumably have the capability to withdraw its protection from others, would be the Guardian itself. Well aware of how events are supposed to unfold and to protect the integrity of the timeline and Spock’s place in it, the Guardian allows the timeline to be changed. It then makes sure that Spock figures out what he must do to revert the changes, the Guardian’s own temporal directives preventing him from telling Spock outright. The best the Guardian could do was protect Kirk and Spock’s memories, so that Spock would recall what was supposed to happen and Kirk to give him the support he needed to go back in time.

But then the question becomes why the timeline had this snarl in it to begin with? Was there a previous timeline before that where Young Spock did survive without intervention but temporal shenanigans took place to alter that original, leaving this as a patch job? Therein lies another discussion, perhaps, or a fanfic.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x01 Twovix and 4x02 I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

In TNG, Picard says that the Federation has evolved past a need for money. Indeed, we never see any.

In DS9 though, Quark talks a lot about bar tabs and costs. Surely O'Brien and Bashir don't get free drinks, so how do they pay? I'd assume that any Ferengi worth his lobes won't accept anything that can be replicated, so do Federation officers get a stipend of tradeable "value" when interacting with cultures that still expect payment?

I think there's also a reference to Quark paying rent to Sisko for running the bar. Presumably that's denominated in latinum. I wonder where it goes? Maybe the secret "Garak black ops" fund.

If when someone is Tuvixed they keep their memories, then Captain Doctor Frigleeman would've kept the memory that Captain Freeman wanted to keep everyone alive. If Frigleeman knew that, then why did she help T'Illups if she knew he was misguided?

It appears that this is a promotional feature in Smithsonian Magazine for a a new book Reality Ahead of Schedule: how science fiction inspires science fact.

This seems a good fit for Daystrom Institute, but happy to relocate if it’s a better fit for another community.

In music, repetition legitimizes; in Star Trek, Spock legitimizes.

(Full disclosure, I've watched many Adam Neely videos but haven't actually watched the one above.)

Spock has been deployed again and again when Star Trek has "pushed the envelope". When JJ Abrams wanted to launch a new Star Trek film franchise, he brought in Leonard Nimoy to have Spock pass the torch. When Alex Kurtzman wanted to launch a new serialized streaming Star Trek series, he wrote it about Spock's sister (with Spock's father appearing from the first episode), and brought in Spock himself in the second season.

And when they needed to make the big swing for the fences and literally do a Star Trek episode where everyone is singing as if in a musical, who is the very first character to sing? Yes, of course, it's Spock.

The first Very Short Trek episode, "Skin A Cat", continues this trend. In this, Paramount's first officially non-canon official production (and debatably their silliest slice of Star Trek yet), the only character voiced by their "normal" actor is -- yes, you guessed it -- Mr. Spock.

Whenever the in-universe era permits, Spock is consistently invoked whenever Star Trek breaks new ground.

We can even extend this analysis retroactively all the way back to the beginning: when Star Trek was "rebooted" for the very first time -- after "The Cage" was rejected, and the premise reworked into "Where No Man Has Gone Before" -- only Mr. Spock and the Starship Enterprise herself were carried through into the new version, creating a lineage that indelibly legitimizes "The Cage" as Star Trek, even in spite of massive changes otherwise.

(And indeed, the Starships Enterprise play a similar legitimizing role across the franchise -- if an Enterprise appears, it's Star Trek.)

So, here is the question for us: why does Spock enjoy this particular ability to reify something into being Star Trek? Why is it he -- not Kirk, not McCoy -- that gets called on when the showrunners want to "bulk up" on their Star Trek bona fides? Why is it that, if Spock does it, it's Star Trek?

Annotations for Star Trek: Lower Decks 4x02: “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”:

The title is a play on the classic science fiction short story “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, best known in Star Trek for writing TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”, although what ended up on screen was significantly different from what he originally wrote.

The opening scene plays around with the stereotypically treacherous nature of Romulan society. Remans were the indigenous species of the planet Remus whom the Romulans enslaved for centuries. The markings on the Romulan officers’ foreheads mark them as Northern Romulans (as opposed to the smooth-foreheaded Southerners). The torture chair is of the same type that was used for Geordi La Forge in TNG: “The Mind’s Eye”. The design of the Romulan ship is not your standard D’deridex but based on the initial concept art for the class by designer Andrew Probert.

The outfits that Ransom and Shax are wearing as they stretch are the ones from the infamous exercise scene in TNG: “The Price”, with Ransom wearing Troi’s tights and Shax in Crusher’s colors. Ransom suggests hot fudge sundaes - chocolate sundaes were a favorite of Troi’s.

Tendi packs the model of the Cerritos she and Rutherford built (LD: “An Embarassment of Dopplers”) - later we also see the Deep Space 9 model she gave Rutherford in the same episode. She refers to an unseen adventure where they swapped bodies because of cosmic rays, mind swapping being featured in several Trek episodes, most recently in PRO: “Mindwalk”. Tendi also has a picture of “The Dog” (LD: “Much Ado About Boimler”) among her possessions.

Boimler has his Stargazer model (LD: “Reflections”), his promotion certificate (LD: “No Small Parts”), his Captain Freeman Day Banner (LD: “First First Contact”) and the Klingon headpiece he wears when playing bat’leths & biHnuchs (LD: “The Least Dangerous Game”). He also has a Mirror Universe Archer figure (ENT: “In a Mirror, Darkly”, although how the Prime Universe knows about that is unknown), a commemorative plate with the Cerritos on it, the recruitment poster with Number One (SNW: “Those Old Scientists”), Spock in his monster maroons and Data in his First Contact uniform holding a phaser rifle.

The shuttles are named after National Parks, in this case Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Redwood. Mariner refers to a “menagerie”, alien zoos that are always scooping up humans (TOS: “The Menagerie”).

I don’t recognize the purple starfish-like creature, but next to it is a glommer (TAS: “More Tribbles, More Troubles”) and a cylinder of florkas (LD: “Moist Vessel”). In the other display case is a Ceti Eel (ST II). We also see among the exhibits an Aldebaran serpent (TNG: “Hide and Q”), a koala (“Moist Vessel”), a unicorn alien dog (TOS: “The Enemy Within”) and an Hanonian land eel (VOY: “Basics, Part II”).

The visor Boimler puts on is the one Spock uses in TOS: “Is There in Truth No Beauty” to protect against madness for gazing on the Medusan form.

Narj points to his Pyrithian swamp gobblers. Other Pyrithian species include the Pyrithian Bat and the Pyrithian Moon Hawk. Dr Phlox on the NX-01 had a bat and used a paper model of a moon hawk to scare the bat when it escaped (ENT: “A Night in Sickbay”).

Rutherford is working on The Most Important Device in the Universe, a common prop in Star Trek and other science fiction related shows. Rutherford calls a two tube configuration Tucker Tubes, presumably after Chief Engineer “Trip” Tucker of the NX-01. A Cochrane is a measure of warp field strength, with 1 Cochrane equal to a field strength that will produce Warp Factor 1, or the speed of light.

Mariner refers to the time Ransom stabbed her in the foot (LD: “Temporal Edict”), when he turned into a head and tried to eat her (LD: “Strange Energies”), their time on the orbital lift (“The Least Dangerous Game”).

Rutherford could have been promoted when he saved the Cerritos from the Pakleds in LD: “No Small Parts” and the crew of the Roubidoux from a cosmozoan in “Much Ado About Boimler” but he turned it down. He finally gets his promotion to LT j.g. for the time he removed Cerritos’ hull in LD: “First First Contact”.

Ransom’s reference to humans being “The Most Dangerous Game” is to the eponymous 1924 short story by Richard Connell, which basically created the trope of hunting humans and the hunter eventually becoming the hunted. The short story has been adapted and copied innumerable times. The title was inverted for LD’s “The Least Dangerous Game”.

The title refers to the legendarily controversial VOY episode “Tuvix”, which is still so divisive in fandom today that discussions on it are tightly regulated, if not outright banned, in some fan forums.

Boimler is put on holodeck waste disposal duty, removing all the organic material caught in the biofilters after holodeck sessions. It is a particularly odious chore that Mariner performed in LD: “Moist Vessel”. T’Lyn remarks that Boimler’s odor will be repulsive - Vulcans are known to find the smell of humans oppressive even under the best of circumstances, and some take nasal suppressants/numbing agents (Spock in SNW: “Charades”, T’Pol in ENT: “The Andorian Incident”) while getting used to it. Female Vulcans have more sensitive senses of smell than males.

The Portelo space station is a redress of the Regula-I type station first seen in ST II, with drydock facilities attached. The original was the orbital station model at the start of TMP turned upside down. The Regula I model has been reused in TNG, VOY and LD and we’ve seen a better armed variant of it in DS9.

Beljo Tweekle (named after the original superfan Bjo Trimble?), from his facial markings, is a native of Rigel V (ENT: “Affliction”). LT Drew Pratchett, of the USS Oakland, is also a Rigelian (LD: “Much Ado About Boimler”).

In the titles, the increasingly crowded battle between the Crystalline Entity, the Romulans, the Borg, the Klingons and the Pakleds is now joined by the Whale Probe (ST IV) and what I think is a Breen warship.

This episode takes place on Stardate 58724.3, which is c. 2381. Freeman mentions that Voyager will spend some time on the surface of Earth before being moved to orbit. The Intrepid-class was specifically designed to be able to perform a planetary landing and takeoff (VOY: “The 37s”).

By 2401, the Voyager will be on display at the Fleet Museum orbiting Arthan Prime (PIC: “The Bounty”). However, the ship at the museum has some differences from the original (and this restored version), most notably the prominence of the hull plating and the lack of a name and registry number on the underside of the primary hull.

The mannequin that Boimler drops is that of ENS Harry Kim, from the hairstyle. Tweekle calls it a “mission-worn uniform”, much like the “screen-used” props and uniforms that are occasionally auctioned off. Rutherford refers to the time when an alien cheese infected the bio-neural gel packs of Voyager’s computer system (VOY: “Learning Curve”).

Kayshon says, “Unzak, when he guided the florkas to their roost.” Florkas are small green winged insects used by Tamarians who are trying to ascend to a higher plane of existence (“Moist Vessel”).

T’Lyn says Voyager is outdated and smells like Borg (how does she know what they smell like?). The ship did have an inordinate number of encounters with the Borg, and of course the ex-Borg Seven of Nine served on board. The storage cylinder Tendi holds contains the infamous orchid that caused the Tuvix incident.

Like all Cerritos shuttles, the Yosemite II is named after a United States National Park. The original Yosemite appeared in several episodes before it crash landed and was considered unsalvageable in LD: “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie”. The current shuttle first appeared in LD: “Grounded”.

T’Lyn says she enjoys an accurate label. That woman is out of control.

When T’Illups materializes on the pad, they are wearing clothes with the same swirly floral pattern that Tuvix had on their “combined” uniform. Mariner isn’t wrong when she says Janeway “straight up” murdered Tuvix - the argument is whether she was right in doing so.

The creature Mariner releases is a macrovirus (VOY: “Macrocosm”) that once infected Voyager in 2373. While Janeway managed to lure what she thought was all of the virus to the holodeck and eliminated them with an antigen bomb, obviously she missed at least one.

Mariner mentions the “Pike Thing” they aren’t supposed to talk about (SNW: “Those Old Scientists”), possibly placing that episode between the events of Seasons 3 and 4.

Shax asks about T’Illiups’ “physical memories” as he and T’Ana are romantically involved. In the corridors of Voyager we see an exhibit with two mechanical salamander creatures (VOY: “Threshold”).

Chaotica (VOY: “Night”, et al.) and Michael Sullivan (VOY: “Fair Haven”) are holodeck programs on Voyager. The Clown is actually from an alien simulation (VOY: “The Thaw”) and was never actually hooked up to Voyager’s holodeck (as Mariner points out).

Tweekle says he installed holo-emitters all over the ship, like the Hirogen did when they took over Voyager (VOY: “The Killing Game”). The USS Prometheus also had shipwide holo-emitters.

Tweekle’s remark about “subtle updates that don’t impact historical consistency are an acceptable compromise for conservation” may be a reference to the updating of VFX in the remastered versions of TOS, as well as the visual updates in various Star Trek shows, notably DIS and SNW. This explains the presence of the Clown in the database. Sullivan kisses Mariner - he was Janeway’s character’s love interest in the “Fair Haven” simulation.

Harry’s clarinet is embedded in the macrovirus that topples the Borg regeneration alcoves, and it then picks up a stray nanite (as does one of the salamanders), probably one of Seven’s.

The entry on Freeman’s PADD about Tuvix is stardated 49678.4, the of the second log entry in “Tuvix”, two weeks after Tuvix was created.

Shax has been merged with Ops officer ENS Barnes to create Shabarnes. T’Illups orders that Honus the bartender be merged with Transporter Chief Lundy to create Chondus. An unconscious LT-CMD Steve Stevens is also dragged out with an unknown blonde female officer. Stevens is merged with Matt the Whale from Cetacean Ops to create Swhale Swhalens.

On Voyager, the Borg-Salamander sets a course for Borg Cube 858779. Sullivan holds Ransom, Kayshon and Rutherford captive in Voyager’s Astrometrics lab. Sullivan sighs that he misses his wife - in a notorious scene from “Fair Haven”, Janeway, to advance her romance with the married Sullivan, tells the computer to “delete the wife”. While Janeway banned herself from altering his program again, as far as we know she never restored Frannie, so it’s not explained why Sullivan even remembers her.

Boimler claims he is the son of Captain Proton, who was of course Tom Paris’ character and Chaotica’s arch-nemesis in the simulations. Rutherford uses the alien cheese to break Voyager’s bio-neural systems.

The California-class starship seal displayed behind Freeman at the promotion ceremony has the color scheme and the bear from the state flag of the Republic of California, combined with a California-class silhouette above the state motto “Eureka!”

Boimler, Mariner Tendi are promoted to LT j.g. and T’Lyn to Provisional LT j.g. Rutherford is left out because he “broke” Voyager, even if it was for a good cause.

The Klingon Bird of Prey is the IKS Che’Ta’, last seen in LD: “wej Duj”, commanded by Captain Ma’aH. The Klingon spear is a gin’tak, first seen in TNG: “Redemption”. Ma’aH gives the order, “Destroy those qoHpu’!” qoH means “fool” and -pu is a suffix meaning people, so it literally means “foolish people” or just “fools”.

Let's assume that Janeway never separated Tuvix and kept him as a crew member. Would the crew have still gotten home?

Assumptions:

• The subsequent story arc (and episode plots) are generally the same
• Any episode where the threat is caused by (or related to) the individual personalities of Neelix or Tuvok never happens
• Any episode where the day is saved by the individual personalities of Neelix or Tuvok is more dangerous
• We can assume that the strengths/weaknesses of Tuvix remain throughout the series

Do they still make it home? If not, what episodes are likely to end in disaster?

One of the recent laws in Trek that gets looked at a bit, is the genetic engineering ban within the Federation. It appears to have been passed as a direct result of Earth's Eugenics Wars, to prevent a repeat, and seems to have been grandfathered into Federation law, owing to the hand Earth had in its creation.

But we also see that doing so came with major downsides. The pre-24th century version of the law applied a complete ban on any genetic modification of any kind, and a good faith attempt to keep to that resulted in the complete extinction of the Illyrians.

In Enterprise, Phlox specifically attributes the whole issue with the Eugenics Wars to humans going overboard with the idea of genetic engineering, as they are wont to do, trying to improve/perfect the human species, rather than using it for the more sensible goal of eliminating/curing genetic diseases.

Strange New Worlds raises the question of whether it was right for Earth to enshrine their own disasters with genetic engineering in Federation law like that, particularly given that a fair few aliens didn't have a problematic history with genetic engineering, and some, like the Illyrians, and the Denobulans, used it rather liberally, to no ill-effects.

At the same time, people being augmented with vast powers in Trek seems to inevitably go poorly. Gary Mitchell, Khan Noonien-Singh, and Charlie X all became megalomaniacs because of the vast amount of power that they were able to access, although both Gary and Charlie received their powers through external intervention, and it is unclear whether Khan was the exception to the rule, having been born with that power, and knowing how to use it properly. Similarly, the Klingon attempt at replicating the human augment programme was infamous, resulting in the loss of their famous forehead ridges, and threatening the species with extinction.

Was the Federation right to implement Earth's ban on genetic engineering, or is it an issue that seems mostly human/earth-centric, and them impressing the results of their mistakes on the Federation itself?

In SNW 1x09 All Those Who Wander, the crew reenact Aliens with a handful of baby Gorn as their adversaries. We learn that Gorn breed by infecting a host animal with eggs, which hatch and burst out of the host when mature (which can take months or hours, apparently depending on the host). The babies are immediately hostile to other baby Gorn, and are left to their own devices until they are picked up by adults at some indeterminate point. We also learn that these baby Gorn are themselves capable of implanting eggs in a host by spitting on them.

These baby Gorn seem like a full fledged viable species already: small, vicious hunters who are (like tribbles) basically born pregnant. From an evolutionary perspective, that's plenty to propagate their own existence. It's also a lifestyle that selects for intelligence (small hunters tend to be pretty smart) but seems like an unlikely route to developing genuine sapience. We'd expect these baby Gorn to have a relatively stable population given the turnaround times of egg maturation and their predilection towards cannibalism, and the later feature would also make it far less likely that any given individual would survive long enough to become an adult, as each fresh generation brings a wave of fresh adversaries who vastly outnumber the handful of survivors from previous waves.

Of course, we know there are adult Gorn. So, how did they come to be? Why would there be a species where the adults are intelligent and social enough to be a spacefaring power, and yet apparently nothing they learn as an adult is needed for an individual to pass on it's genes?

I really love the Federation starship design lineage, and love seeing how it all connects across the centuries of Trek history. This includes designs that at first may not seem copacetic with the rest, like the Starfleet vessels in Discovery. This is my attempt at a partly-speculative, mostly-canon history of human/Starfleet starship design.

I originally put this together in this infographic to post on /r/StarTrekStarships but have reformatted it for text.

I chose to leave the XCV-330 out because we really don't know where it fits in the timeline. Ostensibly it is a warp capable ship, but Into Darkness has it placed before the Phoenix in a chronological display. There's nothing to go off of.

​ ​ ​

EARTH STARFLEET DESIGN ERA

CIRCA 2063–2160

This is an era of expansion for humanity as they first venture out into deep space. Starship designs of this era are primarily influenced directly by Dr. Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix and traditional spacecraft design.

Distinguishing characteristics of this design era include exposed metallic hull plating, primitive iterations of familiar design elements, exposed deflector dishes, round nacelles

EXAMPLES

FRIENDSHIP 1

NX-ALPHA/BETA/GAMMA

SS CONESTOGA

SARAJEVO-TYPE

EMMETTE-TYPE

WARP DELTA / NEPTUNE-CLASS

INTREPID-TYPE

FREEDOM-CLASS

NX-CLASS

​

• Dr. Zefram Cochrane breaks the warp barrier aboard the Phoenix in 2063, launching an era of human expansion into the stars
• Only four years later, the arrival of the Vulcans and the goal of space exploration has begun to unify the globe. By 2067, the United Earth Space Probe Agency already exists, and launches Friendship 1, Earth's first warp-capable deep space probe.
• It is only another two years before the unaffiliated civilian colony ship SS Conestoga launches in 2069. The design appears makeshift, two Cochrane-style warp nacelles retrofitted to a hull derived from the earlier sublight DY-type transports. It is likely this is also around the time when the colony seen in The Masterpiece Society departed, as their descendants were unaware of transporters.
• While the first Lunar colonies were being founded around the turn of the century, the Emmette-type enters service as the earliest known large-scale, warp-capable starship. Likely used primarily for intra-system travel, especially between Earth and Mars. The Emmette-type still uses chemical-based rocket propulsion at sublight speeds (as seen in the ENT intro).
• The "warp delta" appears to have been developed from the earlier Emmette-type test-bed as part of continued developments in warp drive and impulse engine research.
• The Warp Five Complex is dedicated by Zefram Cochrane in 2119. Dr. Henry Archer and his team begin work on the next generation of Earth's warp drive. The NX-Alpha and its later iterations are used as the primary research and development test-beds for warp drive development.
• The Sarajevo-type transport's earliest known appearance is 2154, but it may have existed earlier. Its unique design and integrated nacelles suggest it may be an unaffiliated civilian transport rather than a Starfleet vessel. It may represent the pinnacle of early warp 1-2 drives being made available for civilian use.
• The Intrepid-type represents Starfleet's earliest known iteration toward the now-familiar primary hull, perhaps as the necessity of keeping distance between the warp engines and the bulk of the crew for safety became more apparent. The Intrepid's Cochrane/Archer-type nacelles are significantly larger than its contemporaries, suggesting it was used to test newer, more powerful engines.
• The Freedom-class is noted as Earth's first warp 4-capable starship. It is a very small ship, possibly one that had been under MACO command prior to being folded into Starfleet. It should be noted that the design seen here is probably not the ship's original appearance, as it may have been refit during the Earth-Romulan War.
• The Earth Starfleet Design Era culminates in the NX-class starship, the ultimate peak of pre-Federation human starship design, and the first human starship to achieve warp factor 5, thereby finally giving humans access to deep space at reasonable rates of travel.

​

EARLY STARFLEET DESIGN ERA

CIRCA 2161–2270

As of the founding of the United Federation of Planets in 2161, Earth Starfleet has been folded into the newly-founded Federation Starfleet. Starships capable of velocities up to warp 7 are becoming common, and the venerable NX-class is being decommissioned.

Distinguishing characteristics of this design era include metallic hulls in varying finishes and levels of armor, continued use of Cochrane/Archer-style nacelles in the main production line of starships, exposed but protected and heavier-duty deflector dishes, and experimentation with new materials, layouts, and engine designs. This century sees an explosion in Starfleet R&D as new technologies and techniques from Federation member worlds like VULCAN, ANDORIA, and TELLAR PRIME are tested, developed, and integrated into existing Starfleet technology.

EXAMPLES

NX REFIT

DAEDALUS-CLASS

CONSTITUTION-CLASS

KELCIE MAE-TYPE

ARCHER-TYPE

FARRAGUT-TYPE

WALKER-CLASS

MALACHOWSKI-CLASS

CARDENAS-CLASS

HIAWATHA-TYPE

NIMITZ-CLASS

SHEPARD-CLASS

CROSSFIELD-CLASS

​

• The NX-01 Enterprise is decommissioned in 2161. At some point, it is refit with more powerful warp engines necessitating a secondary hull slung beneath the primary hull, connected by a neck. This would become a mainstay characteristic of Federation starships for at least a century.
  • NOTE: There is a discrepancy in the timing of the NX-01 refit. The finale of STAR TREK ENTERPRISE states that the NX-01 was decommissioned in 2161, in which the final episode takes place, yet the ship still has its original body. It is possible that the ship was recommissioned after the founding of the Federation, refit, and rechristened the USS Enterprise (as it is named in the 25th century Fleet Museum). It is also possible Commander Riker's holodeck program is inaccurate.
• This design era marks the beginning of several distinct efforts by Starfleet to branch out and experiment with new ship and engine technology after a century of iterating on the designs of Dr. Zefram Cochrane and Dr. Henry Archer.
• Among the first of these experiments is the Daedalus-class starship. While still making use of standard Cochrane/Archer-type warp engines, it marks a radical departure from previous starship layouts. The NX Refit's secondary hull is expanded to a large cylinder, and the primary hull is made spherical. The Daedalus-class was among the first starship classes fielded by the newly-formed United Federation of Planets — the USS Essex, under the command of Captain Bryce Shumar, is lost with all hands in 2167, only six years after the founding of the Federation. The Daedalus-class is retired by 2196
• By the 2220s, Starfleet has launched the Walker-class starship as a test-bed for new engine development. In a nod to its experimental nature, the ship's design evolves directly out of the lineage of the NX-01. The Walker-class includes a prototype nacelle design not featured on any other starship class.
• Starfleet's main production line of starships continues iterating from the noble lineage of the NX-01, with the NX Refit evolving directly into the Constitution-class starship, launched in the 2240s. In 2245, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is launched.
• ​At the same time Starfleet is developing the Constitution-class and its derivatives in the 2230s, other starships are developed as testing platforms for new ideas in space-frames, hull materials, layouts, and engine design, possibly utilizing new technologies and techniques adapted from Starfleet member worlds. Ships like the Cardenas-class, Malachowski-class, Shepard-class, and Nimitz-class lay the groundwork for centuries of future starship design to come.
• The Cochrane/Archer warp nacelle design has reached a development plateau, having achieved incredible speed and power as seen with the Constitution-class and its design contemporaries, the Farragut-type and Archer-type starships.
• The Kelcie Mae-type starship demonstrates a wild departure from typical Starfleet design, mixing a standard Cochrane/Archer nacelle with a body plan possibly influenced by similar Vulcan or Andorian starship designs.
• The Early Starfleet Design Era is closed by the Crossfield-class starship, considered new and impressive in 2256. Outfitted with advanced technology, the Crossfield-class was specifically designed as a scientific test-bed for new propulsion technologies. The project's failure and loss with all hands of the only two known ships of the class led to its design being abandoned.

​

MODERN STARFLEET DESIGN ERA

CIRCA 2270–PRESENT

Following the completion of Captain James T. Kirk's five-year mission aboard the USS Enterprise, Starfleet begins a major fleet overhaul program to integrate new technologies and techniques into their starship designs.

Distinguishing characteristics of this design era include advanced hull materials, integrated and illuminated deflector dishes, standardized photon torpedo launchers, and transitional phases between old and new technology as devices like phasers and warp drives are perfected.

EXAMPLES

CONSTITUTION II-CLASS

MIRANDA-CLASS

OBERTH-CLASS

EXCELSIOR-CLASS

AMBASSADOR-CLASS

CONSTELLATION-CLASS

CALIFORNIA-CLASS

GALAXY-CLASS

DEFIANT-CLASS

PROMETHEUS-CLASS

INTREPID-CLASS

SOVEREIGN-CLASS

AKIRA-CLASS

STEAMRUNNER-CLASS

SABER-CLASS

LUNA-CLASS

PROTOSTAR-CLASS

ODYSSEY-CLASS

EXCELSIOR II-CLASS

SAGAN-CLASS

CONSTITUTION III-CLASS

INQUIRY-CLASS

​

• The Modern Starfleet Design Era is inaugurated in the 2270s by the launch of the refit USS Enterprise NCC-1701, retroactively classified as a Constitution II-class starship. The refit Enterprise leaves behind the reliable Cochrane/Archer-style warp nacelles that had been standard for two centuries. Its newer, slimmer, squared-off engine design suggests a design evolution derived from the experimental nacelles tested on Early Design Era starships.
• Like the original Constitution-class Enterprise, the refit's new design elements are carried over to its contemporaries, like the Miranda-class, whose design also evokes the Nimitz-class seen earlier.
• Starfleet once again experiments with radical starship body plans, using a unique split design in the Oberth-class science vessel, perhaps for crew safety.
• By 2285, the USS Excelsior NX-2000 is launched as a test-bed for yet another refinement in starship propulsion. The ultimate success of this project leads to the recalibration of Starfleet's warp scale toward much faster velocities. The long, exposed warp coil grills of the Constitution II-class and Excelsior-class starships become the new standard in nacelle design.
• The Constellation-class starship is introduced by 2285, relatively unique with its four nacelle layout hearkening back to the Cardenas-class, and becomes a mainstay of Starfleet. New vessels of the class continue to be launched for at least the next 40 years, such as the USS Stargazer.
• The next 80 years are spent by Starfleet, rather than on further experimentation, on refining and perfecting their existing technologies. The Ambassador-class starship, with its clear lineage from the earlier Excelsior, launches by 2340 as the result of this effort. It features the now-standard glowing warp nacelles ubiquitous in 24th century starship design, while once-typical ball-type phaser banks have now been replaced by more flexible and capable phaser arrays.
• Having mastered the art of designing and constructing modular starships, Starfleet begins building fleets of specialized vessels, such as the California-class, for specific purposes — such as engineering, emergency management, and medical — to be deployed across the Federation.
• By the early 2360s, the Ambassador-class design has evolved into the enormous Galaxy-class starship, as best exemplified by one of the most iconic Starfleet vessels of all time, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D. At 42 decks tall, the Galaxy-class is the most advanced machine ever built my humankind up to that point.
• With the emergence of the Borg threat in 2365, followed by the loss of 39 starships to a single Borg cube in 2367, Starfleet R&D once again turns to radical approaches to counter their new nemesis. This results in the USS Defiant, a new class of starship dedicated entirely to combat, with an overpowered engine, robust weapons array, and minimal facilities for either science or medicine. The Defiant is formally launched in 2370, and deployed to Deep Space Nine to protect the Bajoran wormhole against the Dominion.
• By 2370, Starfleet launches the Intrepid-class starship, a science vessel designed for deep space exploration and outfitted with some of Starfleet's most advanced technologies, including prototype variable-geometry nacelle pylons, intended to counteract the potentially destructive nature of warpfields on subspace as discovered earlier in the year.
• Only shortly thereafter, the Sovereign-class starship is introduced in the early 2370s as a replacement for the aging Galaxy-class, and one capable of defending itself better. The Sovereign-class immediately superseded the Intrepid-class as the most advanced in the fleet, with a new nacelle design that rendered the variable-geometry pylons unnecessary.
• The success of the Defiant in early engagements against the Dominion leads to Starfleet pursuing its combat-forward nature, while settling on larger space-frames to counter the Defiant's propensity for tearing itself apart. These combat-oriented development projects result in compact, battle-ready designs like the Akira-class, Steamrunner-class, and Saber-class, each capable of being quickly crewed and deployed, all of which helped to defend Earth against the incursion of the Borg in the Battle of Sector 001 in 2373.
• In addition to the Defiant and related projects, Starfleet also develops the prototype Prometheus-class starship, utilizing an advanced multi-vector attack mode in which the starship split into three smaller vessels. The Prometheus is launched in late 2373, following the Battle of Sector 001.
• By the end of the Dominion War in 2375, Starfleet has taken incredible losses. Century-old designs like the Miranda and Excelsior-class starships are being refit to participate in the fighting, as with the USS Lakota, with their old 2270s and 2280s-era nacelles being upgraded to generate more power — thus gaining glowing warp coil grills, unlike their earlier predecessors.
• Between 2375–2400, Starfleet focuses on rebuilding its ruined fleets. With limited resources available in the wake of the quadrant-wide Dominion War, tried-and-true designs and methodologies are designated for refurbishment and reuse.
• In 2379, Starfleet launched the Luna-class starship as part of a consolidated effort to return to their principal objective of exploration and discovery. The Luna-class starship built on technologies developed for vessels like the Akira and Sovereign-class starships during the Dominion War, now putting them to use for peaceful purposes instead.
• Following the return of the USS Voyager to Earth in 2378, Starfleet began research and development once again on advanced propulsion technologies. This resulted in the prototype USS Protostar as a test-bed for the protostar drive. The class was ordered into full production in 2384.
• The Odyssey-class starship is launched in 2385, a decade after the end of the Dominion War. One of the largest ships ever constructed by Starfleet, the Odyssey-class builds on the many successes of the venerable Galaxy and Sovereign-class heavy cruisers.
• In addition to the lack of available resources following the Dominion War, the end of the conflict sees a desire by Starfleet and its personnel to return to Starfleet's glory days of exploration. To accommodate scarce equipment, older ships are cannibalized and refurbished into "old-new" designs based heavily on successful designs of the past, refreshed for service in the 24th and 25th centuries. Notable among these are the Excelsior II-class starship, the Constitution III-class, and the Sagan-class.
• By 2399, Starfleet has introduced the Inquiry-class starship, described as "the fastest and most tactically-capable ships in the Federation fleet."

To be clear, I'm not looking to debate whether this is the best Trek film. Rather, I'm asking why so many people see it as such.

I enjoy TWoK well enough, and certainly it is a good film overall. But consider: it is much more militaristic than any Trek before and more than most Trek since, and relatively violent compared to TOS; there is no exploration of strange new worlds; tonally, it is quite different from most Trek stories. (To be clear, I'm not suggesting that these qualities are required for a "good" Trek film -- I'm just noting a few obvious ways that TWoK is unusual.)

In terms of TOS episodes, TWoK is probably most like a combination of "The City On The Edge Of Forever" and "Balance of Terror" -- which, to be fair, are beloved classic episodes, in part because they are somewhat exceptional compared to the rest of the series. So perhaps that gives us some clue as to why the film is so beloved.

In general, TWoK is ultimately about mortality. For all that the film professes to be about Khan, he really is just an Act of God (in the natural disaster sense), creating an unstoppable force that Kirk must humble himself against. The film is really about Kirk learning to confront death -- heightened by the contrast of the new life of Genesis and in his newly-rediscovered son. And that is something that the film did which was new: able to plumb the depths of Kirk's emotional journey at greater length thanks to the larger screen and the longer format.

But, again... it's a great film, but I don't know that it's obvious to me that Kirk learning to deal with the no-win scenario particularly epitomizes what "Star Trek" is (whatever the hell Star Trek actually "is"). In that respect, The Voyage Home seems like the most obvious candidate -- whatever Star Trek "is", to me TVH "feels" more like it than does The Wrath of Khan.

So, why has TWoK earned such a place of acclaim?

(PS: I could write a similar post about First Contact, whose popularity also confuses me.)

Couple of thoughts in response to this thread:

1. I think the Borg, as a concept, somewhat falls apart when we considering that natural, biological systems are actually often perfect models for the efficiency that the Borg claim to strive for. And, to clarify, I'm not saying the concept falls apart from a doylist perspective - I think that the fact that Borg technology evolves independent of any particular intent and is highly automated to take the most efficient route to its endpoint kind of reveals the folly of the Borg, which would be super interesting to explore. They're just recreating systems which already exist in nature, from a certain point of view.

2. Considering the miracle of dermal regenerators and similar technology, I actually think Assimilation is highly reversible. Just still really traumatic.

PS - I'm not really sure on what the policy is on linking topics from the subreddit but I'm trying not to post on Reddit so.i guess this is my way of transitioning. Remove if not ok, I guess?

When Kirk comes aboard the Enterprise at the beginning of the episode, La'an is in the transporter room to receive him. Her actual motives for being there are... complicated, but she claims to be there so she "can run a security clearance on [Kirk]." Allegedly this is "just standard operating procedure", which Commander Chin-Riley does not question.

To the best of my knowledge, we've never seen a security officer carry out this "standard operating procedure" before, nor do we actually see it done here. further, Kirk is a reasonably respected Starfleet officer who has been on the Enterprise before (and quite recently). It seems unlikely that he represents a reasonable security risk. Are we meant to interpret this as La'an digging through the regulations for an outdated excuse to be present for Kirk's arrival, or is this a legitimate precaution that we should expect is routinely taken quietly and off-screen? If the later, what could actually be going on that requires the physical presence of the security clearance and can't be accomplished by a simple scan?

I've written about aspects of this before over the years, but this is the first time I'm trying to put down a synthesis of those ideas. The upshot of my thesis is this: the irony at the heart of the Prophets' existence is that the ability to see all of time as simultaneous both grants them an omniscient perspective but at the same time traps them in an existence they have a frustratingly limited amount of control over.

Let's start by looking at time from two different perspectives.

From our linear perspective, time has a beginning, and an end. Events move according to cause and effect (let's put time travel and changing history aside for now). As we progress along the line, our past fades from view, becoming inaccessible and immutable. Our future, on the other hand, is unknowable and does not come into existence until we reach it. The only point of time on which we can exert any influence at all is the present, and that is only because it has the consequence of affecting the future.

From the Prophets' non-linear perspective, however, it's a very different story. For them, time is not a line but a point - a single moment where everything in the universe, including them, simultaneously comes into being and non-being. There is no past for them, no future, only an eternal present on which they can see everything and act on everything and nothing at the same time - because despite being able to act on the present, they cannot actually change anything because cause and effect are indistinguishable from each other, and also because they know what history is supposed to look like.

It may help to think of the entirety of history from the Prophets' perspective as a stained-glass window that comes into existence (from their point of view) all at the same time and which they can see and experience all at once, every moment, while from our linear point of view, each piece is assembled in sequence. We see only pieces of the window as it forms, while the Prophets can see its final form because for them it all happens in one moment.

This is what ultimately traps them, because they find themselves committed to the pattern that they know and see. One question that we often hear being asked is why the Prophets are so concerned with the Bajoran people? The answer, from this perspective, is simple: they are concerned because linear history says they did, and if they didn't, that would create a paradox that would disrupt their non-linear existence. So the actions they perform are according to the pattern they need to conform to in order to maintain that existence, namely the shape of the window/tapestry they perceive.

That form of the window (which we see as a goal being assembled whereas they already see it as complete) is not a goal, per se, inasmuch as it's what they have to make sure it is that way because it's meant to look that way. The ultimate benefit is not so much specifically the defeat of the pagh-wraiths, but simply because that making sure the final form is what it is will maintain the existence of the Prophets' history/timeline.

For the Prophets, everything is always happening right now, and they cannot depart from their predetermined actions any more than we can stop what's happening to us this specific nanosecond because from their perspective, the past - allowing them to anticipate the present moment and the moments to come - does not exist. And because their very existence is dependent on that single eternal present, they are helpless to do anything but follow what is already in the pattern, what has always been in the pattern. Any deviation from the way that pattern is supposed to be laid down causes them harm (that's what chroniton particles do - they create chronal disruptions), which could threaten their very existence.

To put it another way, the Prophets have to keep to the final shape of the window of history because that's the form that to them has already happened and has always happened. But we poor corporeal monkeys, not being able to see and therefore not bound to that pattern have the ability to change the pieces, or place the pieces in a different sequence, which annoys and terrifies the hell out of them. Annoys because we're not following the sequence which will lead to that finished form, terrifies because the picture in the end may not be consistent with what they know should be, or worse, the whole window could shatter.

So to try and get us to reach that final shape, they give us plans, hints, clues (the orbs, the visions, the emissaries) as to how these funny linear creatures should be building the window/timeline. "Put that piece there - no, there! - and that piece is next... no, not that piece, damn it, and no, you shouldn't even be using that piece!" And they can't tell us directly what to do because that action isn't in the pattern, and thus unavailable to them.

So when Sisko did his suicide run into the wormhole, he was deviating from the assembly instructions, sending the Prophets into an apoplectic fit and explaining their angry confrontation with him. So in the end, faced with losing a vital tool that will enable them to construct that final form versus having to change the shape or picture of it, they are forced to chose to go with Sisko's request, but warn him that the new picture that will be shaped is not going to be something he likes, and that's his punishment for not doing what he's told.

Now, this doesn't mean the Prophets don't have free will. It's that their "free will" is constrained by certain hard, almost insurmountable limits. Firstly, the completely free exercise of will in the same way as linear beings do requires the space and time to exercise it, and as far as the Prophets are concerned, there's no progression of time in which they can exercise the same kind of free will that we do.

It's similar to the concepts in the movie Arrival and "Story of Your Life", the short story it's based on. If understanding the alien language of Heptapod B expands your consciousness so you can perceive the future, does ensuring that it unfolds as you foresee it mean that your free will is abrogated? Or does knowing the future create an obligation that you should act precisely as you foresee it?

(There's also similarities to the differences between Elves and Men in Tolkien's Legendarium, where Elves are doomed to fate while Men are allowed to change their destinies... but that's practically another essay by itself)

From this perspective, the Prophets do have free will - they could very well choose not to act according to the pattern even though the pattern says they will act this way because they've always acted this way. But this is dangerous, as seeing the whole of their existence in this way creates an obligation to act just as the pattern says or else their reality runs the risk of collapsing, or changing into a form which makes them cease to exist.

So to sum up: the Prophets may seem omnipotent, and they have incredible powers, but they are still trapped by their very existence and perception of time.

I like thinking of it this way because it's both mind-blowing and ironic at the same time. Mind-blowing because it forces us to consider the perspective of a species who see everything in time in one single instant and raising the accompanying questions of free will and/or determinism. Ironic because for all the power the Prophets seem to have, they can only exercise it in this fashion.

In that sense, the so-called lesser, linear races have more agency than the gods because of the former's limited perspective, and that's just too delicious for words.